Despite being responsible for less than one percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Pakistan is the eighth most vulnerable nation when dealing with the after-effects of climate change and its corresponding crises.
Keeping this alarming reality in mind, the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), in collaboration with partners such as Chevron, Dawlance, InfraZamin, Standard Chartered Bank, BASF, Unilever and Nestlé, among others, organised the second Pakistan Climate Conference on November 1, 2023.
Like its first iteration in 2022, the conference brought together global and local climate change experts, business leaders, policymakers and social activists who addressed the rising urgency of the climate crisis in Pakistan in order to come up with solutions that can effectively mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in Pakistan.
The OICCI’s main objectives in organising the conference, stated Amir Paracha, President, OICCI, were “to galvanise our industry leaders and policymakers to stop talking and start acting, now. We have no time to waste – at this point, only cumulative and collective action will be effective in dealing with the crises that climate change has brought to Pakistan’s doorstep.”
Sidra Iqbal, conference curator, also stated that the conference aimed to serve as a platform which would “bring into cognisance the need for all involved stakeholders to work in tandem, or Pakistan’s climate crisis would continue to devastate the country and its people.”
Andrew Bailey, Co-Chair, OICCI and MD, BASF, emphasised that addressing climate change required local and global leaders to work together to achieve results. In the same vein, Ahmed Shabbar, Founder and CEO of GarbageCAN, during another session, stressed the importance of climate education and allyship that stretches and covers Pakistan’s various economic sectors, public domains, and social strata, arguing that climate change affects everyone, everywhere, which is why, its solutions must also involve “everyone, everywhere.”
